A heartfelt recommendation

[winter]

Some of you may have noticed that there are 260 comments on my last post. 240 of these are me and fyrie talking about a single story. She fed it to me by spoonfuls, killing me softly just as I was trying to work, or sleep, or just get the vampires out of my head by any means possible.

What Remains - Jossverse and Tanz der Vampire. After LA goes boom, Spike comes back to the last two vampires he knows who might take him in.

If I had to put a label on this, it'd probably be Hurt/Comfort. After the Angel finale, Spike is broken to pieces, and it's up to von Krolock, with Herbert's help, to put him back together. But gods, this is so sweet and heart-breaking, and there's one scene (which I won't spoil) that killed me dead.

Even if all you know about Tanz is that I blather about it a lot, go read it - all you need to know is that von Krolock is Herbert's dad, and that he's a sorcerer and occasional seer. All else speaks for itself.

(She's not finished with the first chronological fic in this series, but it will explain a lot if you read the two she posted previously - Until the Moon is Abed, slash and het Herbert/Spike, von Krolock/Dru, and then Unwritten Words, where pre-Buffy Season 2 Spike asks for advice on helping Dru.)

Comments

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

*twirls some* I feel so productive! :D

Also, have found out something - No one had got around to telling Buffy that Spike was alive again. No one on their end did it and Spike only found out after he de-spooked and then, kind of doesn't ever say if he got around to it. I'm assuming it never got brought up, judging on the Immortal episode. So, Buffy doesn't know.

Have you any idea how happy this makes me? :D

[winter]

Hm, and Andrew wouldn't have brought it up to Buffy at any point? But yeah, still. One guilt trip from hell, coming up :D

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Spike told Andrew he'd do it in the episode where Andrew finds out Spike's alive (and promptly tackles him, hugs him, squees and exclaims "He's like Gandalf the White, only more beautiful! He lives, Frodo!") and since he gets limbs lopped off in said episode, I think it slipped his mind...

[winter]

Yeah, true. I forgot that Spike said that. I assume Dawn refuses to come home, Buffy arrives to collect her and gets the surprise of her life? :>

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Actually, that is more than likely, because she did actually have quite a soft spot for him, even if she didn't love him. He was the one who held her and watched her sleep and stroked the hair back from her face when she cried.

Buggrit. Plan for total Buffy smackdown is now somewhat reduced in the face of semi-sympathy for her innocent ignorance. Bitchiness is still likely to ensue, though. herbert's back is up about this... little girl thinking she can storm in a take his new chum from him.

[winter]

I don't think a little thing like ignorance would stop Herbert, really. And there's still the fact that von Krolock is a) hitting on her baby sister, b) acting all protective over her ex, and c) quite possibly has her current significant other smirking at him in fond remembrance.

Only so much a girl can take, after all.

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

*snickers* poor Buffy. Storming in, guns blazing, only to find her dead ex alive and well, her sister not wanting to be rescued, her boyfriend admiring the decor and her best friend geeking out in the library :D

I really want to finish the first visit by Spike, but oh, the next in sequence will be so much fun!

[winter]

Ah, but you need to finish the first visit too! I want to see innocent William getting artfully molested :P

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

What about the smackdown of Angelus? You just know that is going to be hilarious :D

[winter]

*whimpers* Just write something, mmkay?

Bloody vampires.

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

*cackles and dives into word*

Gotten a little hooked on fragments? :D

[winter]

Just a little bit.

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Dawn's currently nicked her sister's car and is headed to the manor :)

[winter]

Feed me once you get something substantial? :)

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Naturally :D And oh, it's fun! She's all grown up and 18, heading towards 19, and legal and driving and everything. Plus, she's lost the teen-brat-ness which made her irritating :)

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

When she had heard the name was on Giles’s delivery list, she’d known it was a job she was going to do, even if she didn’t wait for her sister’s permission. School was out, she had already graduated and if Buffy was going to tell her to get a job, she could say she already had one.

And the better car.

Tearing around a hairpin bend, she floored the accelerator, speeding onwards back into the shadow of the forests that seemed to go on forever in this neck of some weird country with ‘ania’ in the name.

Somewhere in the west, she knew the sun was starting to sink. Even now, she could tell by the faint shades of pink that were starting to appear across the clouds. With a laugh, she shook her head at that thought. She really had been hanging out with Slayers for way too long.

It certainly gave her an excuse for the speed she was racing through the landscape at, the roof of the convertible down, and the wind shrieking around her as she sped along roads that seemed way too narrow.

From what she’d heard about this area, it was a place of the big and ugly badness, most of them with teeth and fangs, but what worried her more was that if she didn’t get the delivery to the guy - blood-free and in one piece - then Giles would rip her a new one. And that was before Buffy found out her cool little convertible had been stolen and raced off to eastern Europe.

Demons could attack, for all she cared, as long as they didn’t get between her and the delivery she was trying to make.

[winter]

Mwahahaha. On a tangent, have you read Snow Crash? Because Dawn is totally channelling Hiro Protagonist here :D

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Never even heard of it. I hope that's not a bad thing ;)

[winter]

Not at all. But... oh damn, I don't have an e-text. Check it out sometime, just the first few pages. Hiro's a katana-toting pizza deliverer who'll do anything to deliver his 'za within 30 minutes of the order. Because if he doesn't, the customer is legally allowed to shoot him, take all his money and have the pizza for free. The perks of ordering from Mafia Pizza, you know.

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Hee! Sounds like the kind of thing that would amuse me far too much :D


Snippet:

Even if they did attack, she had an axe tossed in the passenger seat, several stakes, a modified pistol with silver bullets, the elaborate embossed knuckle-dusters Faith had sent her as a birthday present, not to mention the protection spells that Willow had woven around her as snugly as a sock on a foot.

And underneath it all, there was a nervous flutter in her belly as she remembered the letter she had hastily shoved in the glove-compartment to take as proof, in case she had to check that this... Graf-guy was who she suspected.

Asking Buffy had been a big no-no.

Saying anything about what happened in the Hellmouth that day was.

Sometimes, she had walked into the house and found Buffy just sitting, looking out the window, interlacing her fingers in a patch of sunlight, but she had never asked and Buffy had never said.

While it was their big triumph, leading to an army of Slayers and knocking Hell right on its ass, she knew neither of them were going to forget that it hadn’t been easy and that people had died.

If it was just some twisted vampire’s idea of a sick joke, then she was going to be pissed and she had her collection of vampire-whacking gadgets to show just how pissed off a Vampire Slayer’s non-Slaying baby sister could be.

While she didn’t have the additional strength and healing that Slayers did, she had spent too many years on the sidelines watching and figuring out new tricks. She had helped designing new weapons, kinds that could be worn as part of every-day clothing until they weren’t, and she never went anywhere without them.

Her hair whipping against her cheeks, she pushed it back from her face and squinted through the trees. According to the map and some not-very-helpful locals, the house she was looking for was meant to be around here somewhere.

[winter]

Okay :D Now all I want to know is whether Spike's getting glomped :D

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking about sending Herbie out to meet her ;)

How VK first sees Dawn:

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

“Damn it,” she muttered, glancing towards the sky, which was growing darker by the instant, the first stars appearing.

Not that she was afraid of the dark, but getting stuck in a strange forest in the middle of nowhere with no signal on her cell phone was definitely not a good thing, even by normal-people standards.

And then, there it was, as if it had been hidden there all the time; lights shining through windows between the trees.

Anyone else would have been relieved, but Dawn felt an uneasy prickle run down her spine. She’d seen Willow’s masking spells before, seen the unmasking and the way it had just appeared was in no way a good thing.

Still, it wasn’t like she had any choice right now.

Following the winding road, she wasn’t entirely surprised when broad, metal gates swung open without so much as an inquiry about her identity. There wasn’t even any security around the walls. That usually meant either incredibly dumb home owners or people who used security that couldn’t be seen.

Under the tyres the gravel rattled and crackled as she neared the front doors of what looked like a pretty damn cool house. It was old, but looked like it had been looked after too.

Climbing out the car, she grabbed the parcel of Giles’s crazy-expensive books in their box. Tucking it under one arm, she adjusted the dagger in the sheath on her back, straightened her crucifix, checked her one-shot crossbow on her wrist wasn’t showing and smoothed her wind-swept hair.

Satisfied that she looked as professional as she could, she strode towards the front door, but before she even lifted her hand to ring the bell, the door swung open.

“Oh, great!” she groaned at the sight of the empty hall. Knowing hesitant behaviour would only make her look like an extra in some tacky horror film, she exhaled a frustrated breath and strode into the building.

Coming to a halt in the middle of a grand hallway, she looked around, but couldn’t see anyone about.

“Okay, I’m going to bow to the pressure of the cliche here,” she called out loudly, turning in a circle. “Is there anyone there? No? Okay. Well, I’ll just take your crazily-priced books and leave then, okay?”

[winter]

:D

Okay, does he materialise in front of her or spare her feelings and appear behind her so that she can (he thinks) squeal and stumble right into his arms? ;)

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Dawn really has spent too long hanging out with a) a gazillion Slayers and b) Spike. Turns out, he used to do the sneaking up on her thing, so Dawn knows better than to expect normal behaviour from any vaguely supernatural people ;D